Federal government invests in dairy sector

Jul 11, 2023

Ottawa is supporting industry development under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

The federal government is investing millions of dollars into Canada’s dairy sector to help it become more sustainable.

The government is providing Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) with $7.5 million dollars to help support sustainable development in the industry.

The funding is coming through the AgiScience Program – Clusters Component, under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

The support is part of an overall public-private partnership worth $13 million. Partners include the federal government, DFC, Novalait and Lactanet.

“Today’s announcement will help Dairy Farmers of Canada build on their momentum, by ensuring they have access to the tools and research they need to continue to improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the industry,” Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a July 11 statement.

DFC will use the funding to support research focusing on greenhouse gas reduction, carbon sequestration, genetic improvement and other areas.

In total, the organization will invest in 13 research projects in line with its National Dairy Research Strategy.

DFC has committed the dairy farm sector to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050.

And these investments in research projects will help the sector reach its goal.

The federal support “is essential to enable strong, robust and evidenced-based research material that ultimately helps dairy farmers increase the efficiency of their farms,” Pierre Lampron, president of DFC, said in a July 11 press release. “The investment is another important step towards Dairy Net Zero and Canadian dairy farmers’ continued work on furthering a sustainable dairy sector.”

Video: Making budget friendly pig feed on a small livestock farm

I am going to show you how we save our farm money by making our own pig feed. It's the same process as making our cattle feed just with a slight adjustment to our grinder/ mixer that makes all the difference. We buy all the feed stuff required to make the total mix feed. Run each through the mixer and at the end of the process we have a product that can be consumed by our pigs.

I am the 2nd generation to live on this property after my parents purchased it in 1978. As a child my father hobby farmed pigs for a couple years and ran a vegetable garden. But we were not a farm by any stretch of the imagination. There were however many family dairy farms surrounding us. So naturally I was hooked with farming since I saw my first tractor. As time went on, I worked for a couple of these farms and that only fueled my love of agriculture. In 2019 I was able to move back home as my parents were ready to downsize and I was ready to try my hand at farming. Stacy and logan share the same love of farming as I do. Stacy growing up on her family's dairy farm and logans exposure of farming/tractors at a very young age. We all share this same passion to grow a quality/healthy product to share with our community. Join us on this journey and see where the farm life takes us.